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What To Do With Wapato? Few Ideas, Fewer Dollars

Multnomah County officials have released the seven suggestions they received for possible future uses of the mothballed Wapato jail. Among the options: a community garden, a college, and even a film production center.

Multnomah County built the jail for $58 million ten years ago. None of the suggestions came with pledges of money.

It's been 10 years since it was built and Multnomah County's Wapato Jail has still never been used to house prisoners.

A team claiming ties to reality television is offering money - $2 million - to film the jail’s transformation into a future use. But, it doesn’t say what that use will be.

A group calling itself “Round Op Alpha” offers $58 million to use Wapato as a jail. The group’s web site calls itself a “global operation for the arrest of the world government.”

One submission offers a $ 1 million bill to make Wapato “a bar, or a house.”

Another suggests turning Wapato into a state hospital for the mentally ill.